The D-Day Beaches, Normandy

On 6 June 1944, 156,000 Allied troops crossed the English Channel and landed on five beaches on the Normandy coast. The D-Day landings were the largest seaborne invasion in history and represented the beginning of the end of the Nazi occupation of Western Europe. Standing on Omaha Beach today, looking up at the bluffs that the German defenders held, and then walking to the Normandy American Cemetery above, requires no particular interest in military history to understand what happened here.

The five beaches stretch roughly 50km along the Calvados and Manche coastlines. Two days allows a proper visit; one day is possible but rushed.

Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery

Omaha Beach had the highest Allied casualties of any landing site: approximately 2,000 Americans killed, wounded, or missing. The beach is wide, flat, and open; the bluffs above it are not. Walking from the waterline to the high ground, the direction the soldiers walked on June 6, makes the physical reality of the assault comprehensible in a way that reading about it does not.

The Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer sits on a clifftop directly above the beach: 9,387 graves, white marble crosses and Stars of David on an immaculately maintained ground looking out over the Atlantic. The visitor centre is well-designed and takes about an hour to move through properly. The experience is one of the most affecting in Europe.

Pointe du Hoc

The jagged headland between Omaha and Utah where US Rangers scaled 30-metre cliffs under fire to destroy German gun emplacements. The craters from pre-invasion bombing still crater the entire headland, preserved exactly as they were. The German bunkers and observation posts are intact and can be entered. This is probably the most visceral surviving D-Day site: the physical landscape of the battle is still present rather than commemorated from a distance.

Utah Beach

Calmer and less crowded than Omaha. The Manche Museum at Utah Beach is good, particularly on the paratrooper drops that preceded the beach landings and the role of the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions.

The British and Canadian Beaches

Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches are less visited by Americans and have excellent museums. The Juno Beach Centre at Courseulles-sur-Mer covers the Canadian landings, often overlooked relative to the American beaches, with particular care and good archival material.

Bayeux

Bayeux, 8km inland, is the natural base. The Bayeux Tapestry (an embroidered cloth 70 metres long depicting the 1066 Norman conquest of England, housed in its own museum with excellent interpretation) is worth an hour and is significantly more interesting in person than it sounds. Entry around €14.

The Bayeux War Cemetery is the largest Commonwealth military cemetery in France: 4,144 graves, and beside it a memorial to 1,800 Commonwealth servicemen with no known grave. The contrast between these numbers and the scale of the American Cemetery at Omaha produces its own kind of comprehension.

Getting There

Bayeux is 2.5 hours from Paris by train (change at Caen) or by car via the A13. The beaches require a car: distances between sites are too great for buses or walking. Car hire is available at Caen. Most visitors combine Bayeux and the beaches in a two-day itinerary.

La Rapière in Bayeux is dependable for Norman cuisine: calvados-cream sauces, moules, local ciders. The farmhouses on the back roads between Bayeux and the coast sell cider, calvados, and Camembert and Livarot cheeses direct, which is a reason in itself to drive rather than bus.